The platform lets people rent out upmarket homes to tourists,
a bit like a posh Airbnb. The average rate is around $600
(£382) a night, all the houses and apartments are in trendy,
expensive neighbourhoods, and onefinestay provides cleaning and
linen services.

But CEO Greg Marsh doesn't see the company as just an upmarket
Airbnb — in fact he doesn't think onefinestay is even in
competition with the US platform.

He told Business Insider: "What we do is so much broader and
deeper than just an internet site. You wouldn’t say Selfridges is
an upmarket eBay. We’re taking responsibility for the entire
experience of the customer."

Marsh sees Airbnb and onefinestay as operating in totally
different parts of the market, with Airbnb eating into the lower
level of the hotel market while onefinestay targets high-end
consumers. He adds: "Look at the traditional luxury hotel market
— there’s not one hotel in every city, there’s lots of hotels.
Some are really well run, others less so."

One
of onefinestay's rental properties on Bay Street, Los
Angeles.onefinestay

But what if Airbnb decides to go upmarket and offer a similar
serviced-home rental programme to high end travellers? Marsh
shrugs this off, saying: "We were terrified at the beginning that
there would be other people who would come in and crack this but
the reality is I think it’s relatively hard to do this well,
consistently and at scale.

"You shouldn’t run your business looking over your shoulder and
worrying about what someone else might do. What we look at is
what our customers tell us. They come back in increasing volumes
and they tell us they want to come back."